Times are busy for plan-checkers at Kamloops city halls.

With high numbers of building permits coming in, building officials are only doing field checks for four days per week instead of five.

Jason Dixon, the city’s building and engineering development manager, says for now, staff are using Wednesdays to catch up on any backlogs on permits.

“We’ve got processing times back into about the six-week range for processing residential permits. It was a bit higher than that. Our goal would ideally be in the three-to-four-week range. So we’re a little behind, and that’s why we’re doing that extra effort on processing to try and get that time down.”

Dixon also says commercial building permits are being processed in six-to-eight weeks, which he says is “not far off” from normal.

“We kind of manage those a bit differently. Smaller tenant improvements that go in the commercial category, we kind of try and take a day a week to work on those. Really big ones that take more time, sometimes those will have a longer processing time… We’ve definitely seen more activity. It’s been a little busier with applications on the commercial side over the last month.”

The city processed 680 building permits in the first five months of this year – the most its done in that timeframe in any of the past six years.